Wednesday, June 25, 2014

I Almost Became Tipsy

K. So.
Ya. This week was good/hard/interesting. So I am going to stop this greeting
part of my letter and start writing my email to you guys if that's ok.

I thought I should warn
you that this letter might be "all over the place". On the way to the
church this morning we were driving along, listening to our favorite EFY CD,
when all of a sudden I see a bush on the side of the road start to shake. Out
of the corner of my eye we see this family of 4 squirrels make a beeline across
the street. With no time to slow down we hit 2 of them. One of them passed on
and the other one that was hit was able to stumble off the road. I am still a
little shaken from this traumatic experience so please forgive me for any
imperfections in this letter.

We met a haggard man on
the streets in White Plains. He kept saying that our church was started by the
Illuminati. When we told him we weren't part of the Illuminati, he told us that
we should, "really find out about the history of our church." There
aren't too many things more interesting than a haggard man that thinks he knows
more about your life-long religion than you do.

As I was checking out of
the grocery store I caught a glimpse on a magazine that Emily from the Bachelor
is getting married?! I had been thinking that my chances with her were slim, considering she hasn't written me yet, but that was really the salt in the
wound.

We had the opportunity
of doing service at another church this weekend. There is a church that feeds
breakfast to the homeless people in White Plains once a month. The church loves
us missionaries because we love to help people so they invited us. I had the
glorious job of serving the bacon. There were extreme amounts of bacon there,
so much that I don't even think Josh Jensen could have downed it all. Of course
since my table had the bacon, it was poppin’. Errybody wanted that bacon.

We have this one
investigator named Frank who is a man. When I say man I don't mean that his
chromosomes are XY, he is a boy who is old. I mean he is an ex-Marine that
fought in The Battle of the Pacific during World War 2 as a 17 year old. He
served as a Sheriff and he drinks a glass of Scotch before bed every night (I
am not making this up). He is 89 and reminds us of the old guy from
"UP". Anyways, we were teaching him about The Plan of Salvation.
Teaching The Plan of Salvation to a man that is nearing the end of his life,
not knowing what his purpose is or where he is going, is a cool thing. The
lesson went great, when all of a sudden he said he needed a drink. He asked us
if we wanted some apple cider. Of course I accepted because it was a muggy day
and what is better than drinking a cold apple cider with a really cool old guy?
He handed the cold apple cider to me in a glass bottle and it looked delicious.
A lil too delicious if you know what I mean.... because as I went to drink it,
I noticed the label said, "HARD apple cider". In my mind I was
thinking, "Oh no, I have to break the news to this man of a man that I am
a young, little Mormon boy that doesn't drink." I told him that I was
grateful he fetched it for me but I couldn't drink it because I don't drink
alcohol. He kept saying that it only had a little bit of alcohol and that it
wouldn't affect me but I had to stand strong.

The story of being
offered alcohol got me thinking. At The Sermon On the Mount, Jesus taught us
that we need to, "Be ye therefore perfect…" That is the standard that
God has set for us, we need to be perfect. It wouldn't have mattered if that
apple cider that I had been offered had a little alcohol or a lot. It would
still be a sin to partake. It is the same with other sins. It doesn't matter if,
for example, we tell a little lie or rob a bank. That little lie we told is a
sin and God cannot and will not stand for that. Just because we don't commit
huge sins does not mean that we shouldn't take advantage of the Atonement. We
can use the Atonement as much as we need to! I invite you all to repent of even
the little sins, because a sin is still a sin no matter how small.